


to hold it against your bones

by Ester



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Angst, Future Fic, Idols, M/M, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:21:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25825810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ester/pseuds/Ester
Summary: If you had told Seungcheol at twenty that a time would come, when he wouldn’t recognize Jeonghan’s face on sight, he would have laughed.// All things end.
Relationships: Choi Seungcheol | S.Coups/Yoon Jeonghan
Comments: 40
Kudos: 133
Collections: Challenge 1: Kidult





	to hold it against your bones

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Mary Oliver's "In Blackwater Woods".

If you had told Seungcheol at twenty that a time would come, when he wouldn’t recognize Jeonghan’s face on sight, he would have laughed. He doesn’t laugh as he sits backstage of KBS’s new _Nice to see you again_ talk show, having concealer tapped on his jaw, and the door opens. A man in a dark overcoat steps in, a takeaway cup in one hand as the other comes up to tug away his black mask. He looks at Seungcheol through the mirror and there is a moment, where Seungcheol just sees a face like any other in a crowd.

It’s a nice face - good skin and luminous eyes, but it’s only a face. Then, the man purses his mouth a little, and the light in his eyes shifts, and it feels like being thrown back in time a decade, to any concert venue makeup station. To any late night in the practice room, thirteen bodies moving in unison in the wall-length mirror. To any morning in their dorm bathroom, brushing their teeth side by side in front of the sink. Seungcheol has an urge - one that he hasn’t had in years - to twist the ring that isn’t on his little finger anymore.

“You’re late,” Seungcheol says in lieu of a greeting. He doesn’t know how to breach a five-year gap with someone like Jeonghan; someone who feels like a part of his own bones but looks like a stranger. The last time they saw each other was at an awards show, purely by accident. It was awkward then, bordering on hostile, but had he known it was the last time, he would’ve hugged him close. Thanked him for everything, all of it, even the awful parts. 

“The traffic at Incheon was shit,” Jeonghan replies, face placid as if he hadn’t expected anything else. He sets his drink in front of the empty chair next to Seungcheol and moves about the room, hanging up his coat and greeting the employees. His polite voice is still the same - softer and a little higher-pitched than the one that used to tease and comfort Seungcheol in equal measure. His presence is palpable, hovering around the room, before coming closer and closer. Finally, he sits down in front of the mirror, close enough to touch. Seungcheol squeezes his hands together, knuckles white. 

The makeup artist comes to start on Jeonghan, muttering about the five o’clock shadow he would’ve never allowed himself to have in public before they both enlisted and little bits of their symbiosis started to chip away. Jeonghan offers an apology and excuses himself for a few minutes, coming back with a pristinely smooth chin. Seungcheol spends those minutes thinking of anything to say. 

“How’s Japan?” is what he comes up with, turning a little in his chair so he doesn’t have to watch his own face go through this conversation. Jeonghan’s eyes flick towards him, but he holds his head still for the makeup artist, who’s patting a sponge over his cheek. 

“Good. Busy,” Jeonghan offers with a slight shrug as if to say _you know how it is_. The conversation drops out. Silence stretches as Jeonghan gets his face matted and powdered. Seungcheol feels frustration pricking at his neck. No one makes it fifteen years in this industry without knowing how to small talk, which means he’s doing this on purpose. 

“You were missed at the wedding,” he says and sees the words hit home as Jeonghan’s lips thin just a little. It’s an unfair jab, Seungcheol knows. Chan is a dutiful maknae and invited all twelve of them to his wedding the past summer. They made the trending page on Twitter with a group photo of them all huddling around the bride and groom, champagne coupes in hand. Wonwoo couldn’t make it there either, but Seungcheol has never held it against him like this. There’s something ugly in him, grief-shaped and sharp, that demands to be seen and recognized; a hurt that has nothing to do with Chan’s nuptials. 

“You know I wanted to be there. I sent a gift.” Jeonghan’s voice is purposefully light, exaggeratedly so, “I don’t know what you want me to say, Seungcheol,” he adds, a little more pointedly, turning to face him, as the makeup artist leaves and he’s free to move. He looks Seungcheol square in the eye and Seungcheol feels the years roll backward. 

He’s thirty-five and angry, standing in a suit being told by Chan that _oh, Jeonghan couldn’t make it_. He’s thirty-two and wistful, spotting an ad on his trip to Kyoto, where Jeonghan looks back at him from a bright LED screen. He’s twenty-nine, hair still short, and getting a news alert instead of a text that Jeonghan is being discharged in a week. He’s twenty-seven and handing over the cube-shaped daesang, stepping away from the mic stand so Jeonghan can give his speech. He’s twenty-four and miserable and the van seat dips from Jeonghan’s weight, as they share a silent ride away from the venue in Jakarta. He’s twenty-two and more in love every day. He’s twenty and crying like a child on the Show Champion stage, while Jeonghan whispers instructions on who to thank against Soonyoung’s neck. He’s eighteen and shaking hands with a soft-eyed boy, happy to have a new friend his own age. 

“You don’t get to be this bitter at me,” Jeonghan tells him, tense around the mouth, “You left first.” He gets up and crosses the room, leaving Seungcheol to sit alone in the aftermath of his words. He always has been good at that; clever enough to devastate, nimble enough to dodge the impact. He had already lived in Tokyo for three months before Seungcheol got the news. 

Seungcheol watches his rigid shoulders for a moment, then turns around to face the mirror. It startles him how grown the person looking back is. For a moment, he had felt twenty-two.


End file.
